#pathé

"La Bataille de Gaulle"

L'Âge de fer et J'écris ton nom

BA 📽 du film de Antonin Baudry avec Simon Abkarian, Mathieu Kassovitz, Benoit Magimel ....

(Films hors compétition au Festival de Cannes)

I´m not finding info to check the veracity of this, but I don´t like it. Part of the success and charm of MonteCristo it´s because of the passion of the french cast and it being the original language of the book

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget | Official Trailer

Synopsis

Dressing up chickens during a Pathé crowing contest

Max Linder arrives at the Pathé

Max and Charles Pathé

The audition. Lucien Nonguet and Max Linder

Lucian Nonguet with Max Linder

Screenshot from the film Max's film debut (1910)

This 14-minute silent film was produced by the most famous French film studio of the silent era, Pathé. Directed by Albert Capellani and Lucien Nonguet, with an uncredited cast, it was filmed partly at the Pathé studio, and partly at the Château de Pierrefonds, an authentic medieval castle in Hauts-de-France that had recently been restored. Like many other French films of the era, it also serves as an early, primitive example of color film, via the process of stenciling. As a result, it has the look of an old-fashioned illustration – slightly crude, yet richly detailed and pretty all the same – come to life.

The story is told in a straightforward manner, easy to follow despite a lack of intertitles. The Princess, her royal parents, and their court wear medieval dress, while a hundred years later, the Prince and his companions wear clothes of the Cavalier era. The six good fairies are beautiful young women in slender, sleeveless gowns, and in a detail that seems inspired by Tchaikovsky's ballet, the fairy who softens the Princess's curse from death to sleep is portrayed as their leader and dressed in lilac. Meanwhile, the Evil Fairy is old and hunched yet still slightly glamorous, in a rich, pale blue gown and a tall witch-like hat. At the christening party, the Evil Fairy shows the court a vision of the Princess pricking her finger on a spindle and dying – a more effective choice in silent film than if she had just spoken the curse. Sixteen years later, we meet a bored and restless Princess confined to her bedroom by her protective parents, with guards at every door and only a devoted nurse for company. But when her nurse falls asleep, the Princess steals the key from her, evades the guards, and sets out to explore the castle... soon finding her way to a tower where an old women sits at a spinning wheel. As in most retellings, the old woman is the Evil Fairy in disguise.

While it's not emphasized, this seems to be a rare Sleeping Beauty that follows Perrault's version regarding the King and Queen's sad fate, where they don't join their daughter in sleep, but continue ruling the kingdom and eventually die before she wakes. They're last seen leaving the Princess's bedside after the Lilac Fairy puts the rest of the castle to sleep, and they don't appear in the finale. A hundred years later, on a hunt, the Prince learns of the sleeping Princess from an old man, and then finds that the forest of hedges surrounding the castle – the work of the Lilac Fairy – miraculously open to let him in. After wandering through the castle and seeing various members of the sleeping court, he finds the Princess and wakes her with a modest, gallant kiss on the hand. The Lilac Fairy then appears to bless their union, and the film ends abruptly with the newly awakened court and the other good fairies greeting the young couple.

Is this a definitive Sleeping Beauty? Far from it. The storytelling is basic and the filming techniques and special effects are primitive. But all the same, it's an intriguing and charming early example of an early cinematic fairy tale. The scenery and costumes are luxuriant, and even without sophisticated effects, some of the filmmakers' stylistic choices do enhance the fantastical atmosphere. For example, the superimposed image of a spider's web over the sleeping Princess's bed, indicating the long passage of time, which finally vanishes when the Prince enters the room.

This film can be viewed in several uploads on YouTube, most without music, but at least one set to the music of Tchaikovsky's ballet.

If you're eager to see what the earliest screen versions of classic fairy tales were like, then this short Sleeping Beauty is definitely worth your time.